


Painted Fire

by estel_willow



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, M/M, roswell secret santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21925681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow/pseuds/estel_willow
Summary: "I'm not here to cause trouble," Alex says with a lift of his shoulders that's all too casual and all too gentle for Michael's liking.A love story, or love stories, in 100 words. Michael and Alex reconnect over Christmas.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 18
Kudos: 130





	Painted Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Milzilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milzilla/gifts).



> This was written as part of the [Roswell Secret Santa](https://roswellsecretsanta.tumblr.com/) gift exchange. I was gifted with the incomparable [Milzilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milzilla/pseuds/Milzilla), whose rec list is a thing of beauty and who is an incredibly talented writer herself.
> 
> So, merry christmas! I hope you like this little gift for you <3

"I'm not here to cause trouble," Alex says with a lift of his shoulders that's all too casual and all too gentle for Michael's liking. Michael wants _fire_ , he always has. He wants heat and passion, _fight_ , because that way he knows without any doubt that he's worth the effort. "I just- I thought we should talk."

"I don' think we have much to talk about," Michael replies and watches how Alex's jaw tenses, trying to stop himself from shutting down the way he always does when things are hard. "Do we?"

Alex meets his eyes and swallows. 

"Yes."

\--

"Yes."

Alex's chest feels tight. He'd thought that he would have some argument from Michael, something that would mean he'd need to push back but the way in which Michael's expression shifts slightly, how his eyebrows raise minutely before he just shrugs and waves his hand at the chair opposite the firepit gives Alex pause.

He'd expected it to be harder.

Everything was always harder, wasn't it? 

Michael stretches out his left hand. A beer flies into it from an open cooler that's stuffed into a snow mound. He curls his hand around it and pops the cap.

"So, talk."

\--

"So, talk."

"I- Don't scoff at me, Guerin." 

"I'm not."

"You did. I- Look, I've tried to tell you things before and I've messed up. I just can't-"

"Can't what, private?"

"..."

"See? I told you, we have nothing to talk about. If you'll excuse me, Manes, I've got drinking to do."

"It's Christmas, aren't you meant to be with your family?"

" _That's_ what you came out here to ask me?"

"No, but it seems as good a time as any to ask why you're here, alone, instead of with Max and Isobel."

"Why aren't you with Forrest?"

"...touche."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

\--

"Forrest and I weren't ever what you thought, you know." Alex's voice is soft, uncomfortable. It doesn't make Michael feel good to watch him squirm but he pushes anyway. 

"No?" 

"We might have been, but- wasn't fair to him when I still had feelings for someone else."

Michael lifts his beer to his lips and drinks it slowly, "Had?" 

"Have."

"Hm."

They fall silent for a while, the only sound being the crackling fire in front of them, between them, lighting their faces and the immediate area like it was a bonfire.

"Maria was the one that-"

"I know."

\--

When Maria had broken up with him, Michael had felt the world caving in around him. He'd thrown everything he had into trying to be what she wanted, but he had no idea what she wanted him to be other than someone he wasn't. He knew he'd fallen back into old habits; fighting and drinking too much. It was September when she bailed him out for the last time, looking exhausted and harried and angry.

"I don't know who you are anymore, Guerin," she told him. 

"Same person I've always been," he'd replied.

"No," she said sadly, "You were better."

\--

They don't talk about anything of meaning. They exchange a few sarcastic quips, laced with a pain neither of them wants to admit to aloud and Alex leaves without another word. His beer, untouched, chills in the snow until Michael kicks it over.

"Alex," he calls, but it's too late. Alex is already in his truck, carefully backing out of the scrapyard Michael calls home.

It hasn't always felt empty and cold. Now, he feels every inch of insignificance as he's alone again, left underneath a cloudless, star-speckled sky, wanting to chase after Alex but finding that he just can't.

\--

Alex, as he drives away, looks in his rearview mirror and sees Michael, standing alone atop his airstream, backlit by the stars. He looks so small and alone that he pulls to a halt in a layby and toys with the idea of going back.

He doesn't. Instead, he picks up his phone and sends a simple text message.

**We should talk tomorrow. Meet me at the Crashdown?**

He sees the silhouette bend its head. Bubbles appear on his screen.

**_You asking me out on a date, Private?_ **

**Just be at the Crashdown for 4pm, Guerin.**

**_See you there, Manes._ **

\--

The Crashdown is quiet. Three days before Christmas, of course it is. It's decked out in tasteful decorations, as much as anything pulled together from green and silver tinsel and alien bobble-heads can be tasteful, and Liz isn't serving today. 

That's a small blessing.

Alex is waiting with two milkshakes and a basket of fries. One milkshake covered one is already halfway to his mouth.

"Gross."

Alex snorts. 

"What did you want to talk about?" 

Michael can't play the game where they dance around each other. Not today. Not anymore. He sits down and waits for Alex to say, "Us."

\--

They talk for a while, though Michael can't really recall just what they talked about. They don't discuss Maria - but they don't have to. Alex doesn't need to hear about what Michael wanted to be for her, Michael doesn't want to rehash that mistake. Their words are hushed whispers, confessions in heartbeats and carefully chosen words over milkshakes, fries and burgers in a cafe that dawdles towards closing time.

"Same time tomorrow?" Alex asks, head tilted slightly and something that feels like hope settles behind his chest. 

It's slow, but it's a start.

"Tomorow," Michael agrees. "See you at two."

\--

They meet the next day at two.

In fact, they meet the next day at two and then at half eleven they're still talking. They leave the Crashdown and wander the chilly streets of Roswell New Mexico, looking at the twinkling lights blotting out the stars overhead and Michael mocks Alex for burrowing into his scarf to protect his nose from the biting cold.

"Not everyone's a walking furnace, Guerin," he grumbles and Michael laughs and something between them swells, hopeful and fragile and it doesn't burst when Michael nudges Alex's shoulder.

It doesn't break when they reach their museum.

\--

Alex doesn't hesitate when he pushes the door open to reveal that the inside of the UFO Emporium looks just the same as he remembers. He hesitates once he's inside, flashing memories of their first kiss under huge styrofoam planets making his legs still involuntarily. He hesitates because he remembers the happiness he felt understanding that Michael Guerin liked him back. He hesitates because he remembers what came next. 

Toolsheds, hammers, blood and screams. 

War, snatched moments full of passion and anger on leave, and Michael's sarcastic 'I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave'. 

\--

Michael watches Alex's jaw twitch. He knows what the other man's thinking about. His hand, though healed, aches in sympathy with the memory of the event. He thinks about Alex telling him _I have to go, Guerin_ , and _I'll see you soon_ , and not knowing until it was too late that Alex had been hurt in the line of duty.

He thinks about how that's their past. An angriness and a hurt that keeps being compounded over and over and over.

He wants to escape it. 

Michael wants to start again.

He takes Alex's hand and gently pulls him away.

\--

"Spoke to Isobel," Michael admits when they get to the back room of the Emporium to find a blanket laid out on the floor and not another soul in sight. Alex only then realises it's far too late for the place to still be open. Michael's grin is sheepish. "She pulled some strings."

Alex doesn't want to be touched by the gesture, but he is. He flexes his fingers from where Michael 's have let go and tucks his hands into the pocket of his coat.

"What're we doing here?" 

"Starting over," Michael replies, like it's obvious. "If you want?"

\--

"Starting over?" 

"Yeah. You said you wanted to be friends and I didn't get it at the time."

"I-"

"Don't, I just- let me say this, Alex. You were right. We need to get to know each other properly but I don't wanna do that from a distance over a table. We're good together, you and me. We're-"

"Cosmic?"

"...yeah, we are."

"And I wanna make this work, Alex, I really do. I just-"

"Don't know how? Yeah, me neither."

"But I- I wanna figure it out together."

"But why here?"

"Where better to start over than where it began?"

\--

They don't kiss. Remarkably, they don't kiss. They just sit down opposite each other and talk, enjoy the crackling tension that ripples between them whenever they get too close. Michael tells Alex about what life is life without him. Alex tells Michael what he can of his time in the Air Force. 

They don't kiss. Remarkably, they don't kiss. They sit side by side and watch the fake stars twinkle in the ceiling and Alex curls into the warmth of Michael's arm. Michael smiles and for the first time in months, it feels real.

They don't kiss. Until they do.

\--

Alex might not have kissed many people in his life, but he knows that when his lips touch someone else's, he isn't meant to see infinity. He's not meant to hear something in him singing and sighing in relief, he's not meant to be able to taste the vastness of the universe. He's not meant to be able to hear a second heartbeat humming, thumping, beating in time with his own.

He's not meant to feel all of those things, nor the sense of completeness that wraps around him like a warm embrace, safe, secure and loved.

But he does.

\--

Michael's kissed lots of people in his life, it's a fact he doesn't want to wear like a badge of pride anymore. But no kiss he's ever had compares to the way Alex's makes the universe cry out to him that he's finally home. No kiss has made him feel like he's whole, like everything he's spent his life searching the stars for is right here in his arms, pressed against him. No kiss has ever given him that same sense of belonging as the ones from Alex Manes.

He's called Alex a crash landing. 

He's never been more wrong.

\--

He doesn't crash, and Alex doesn't burn. But on December 25th, at nine o'clock in the morning, Michael's woken by the sound of howling outside the airstream. He sees Alex leaning against his truck, and a beagle standing against the dashboard.

There's a light flurry of snow falling giving them a white Christmas but nothing beats the lightness in Alex's voice as he says, "Get dressed, Guerin. You're not spending Christmas day here holed up with your beer and bunker."

Michael, with a snort, disappears inside and does as he's told, wondering how long the drive to Alex's cabin is.

\--

They don't go to Alex's cabin.

Michael works out where they're going pretty much immediately after they leave the town's border. He frowns, looking over his shoulder but that just gets him a lick in the face from Buffy the Beagle. 

"S'okay," Alex soothes, catching Michael's hand and squeezing his fingers gently. "You should be spending Christmas with your family," he reasons. "Not alone."

"I wouldn't be alone," Michael retorts, not wanting to admit that he's afraid to see Max and Isobel. He knows his spiral hurt them a lot and he doesn't know how to apologise. "I'd have you."

\--

They have an early lunch at Max's place. Everyone's there, even Maria. It's nowhere near warm enough to cook on the grill outside but they clear Max's living area and then there's room for everyone. Michael's on tenterhooks until Maria smiles at him and tells him it's okay. He can't breathe until Isobel pulls him into a warm hug and he feels the caress of her mind against his. The world's tilting unnervingly until Max shakes his hand and tugs him into a fierce embrace, thumping his back and telling him he's sorry.

Alex watches Michael apologise with a smile.

\--

Lunch is almost perfect. Kyle arrives for dessert and leaves with Maria, so she can see her mom and open the Pony. Liz and Rosa head off next, leaving the alien trio and Alex. He gets up to go when Michael catches his wrist and says _stay_ , because if everyone else gets to be around their family, Alex should too.

Isobel says something and Michael laughs, pelts her with pillows until she takes it back. Alex misses the whole exchange: he's stuck on Michael calling him family.

"But you are mine," Michael murmurs, and they both know what he means.

\--

A few hours later, when they're sitting together on chairs outside Max's house, embers of the fire dying between them, Michael and Alex look over at each other and smile. 

"I-" Alex starts at the same time as Michael says "Alex".

"You first," they both say, followed soft laughter.

Silence hangs between them for a moment before Michael beats Alex to saying anything else.

"Thank you," he says, "for today. For not- for not givin' up on me when I was doing a damn good job of making everyone quit."

"I told you," Alex replies, "I don't look away, Guerin."

\--

"We coulda been perfect," Michael muses, watching the stars twinkle overhead. He's never wanted to admit that his search for belonging in the stars is hopeless as everything he's ever needed is right here on this stupid hunk of dirt and metal, but it is. Max and Isobel are right here and they love him. Alex is here, and if Michael has to spend one more day apart from Alex, separated from the only thing that makes the entropy of his mind quiet then he thinks he'll go insane.

Alex just shrugs. "We still could be. If you want to."

**Author's Note:**

> I thought trying to write a story in 100 word snippets would be easy. It wasn't, but I enjoyed the challenge of trying to make stuff short and succinct, as y'all know I'm wordy AF.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing! <3 
> 
> Happy holidays - however you celebrate them - and Happy New Year.


End file.
